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The EasyRide ticketing system relies on radio frequency identification cards or tags to monitor passenger access to public transportation. Cards equipped with a miniature radio communication module identify passengers and record the information necessary to collect fares. Passengers equipped with an electronic card can board vehicles without prior ticket purchase. Equipment installed on each vehicle automatically detects the card and registers the passenger's entry and exit locations. The collected data, which contains the card and vehicle identification, stop names, and time stamps, is then forwarded from the vehicle to a fare calculation and billing system. Passengers only need to carry the card in their pockets or luggage during the trip, and the whole access control process is executed unnoticeably.

A smart card is a small computer in credit card format with no man-machine interface. This industry wide recognition expresses an essential fact. The specific properties of smart cards, compared with all other types of cards, are determined by a microcontroller integrated in a card, which controls, initiates, and monitors all activities. Software alone cannot satisfy all smart card requirements. Manufacturers must offer additional functions in hardware. The authors describe true random-number generators and an advanced encryption standard computation unit: two different special-purpose hardware blocks that can be integrated on the silicon substrate along with the usual functional units of a smart card microcontroller.

Optimized smart cards must be derived from a generic platform and come with tools to help design and manage services. Also of paramount importance is payback and cost- and performance-optimized solutions to manage end-to-end security.

Smart cards have the tremendous advantage over their magnetic-stripe ancestors of being able to execute cryptographic algorithms in their internal circuitry. This means that the user's secrets (be these PIN codes or keys) never have to leave the boundaries of the tamper-resistant silicon chip, which brings maximum security to the overall system in which the cards participate. Smart cards also provide special-purpose microcontrollers with built-in, self-programmable memory. Together, these features make the cost of a malevolent attack far greater than the benefits. in 1996, 600 million IC cards will be manufactured throughout the world. This article surveys the existing crypto-dedicated microprocessors and describes some of their possible evolutions.

Secure money-transfer cards continue to find acceptance in commerce. Currently, three main types of these cards coexist: magnetic stripe, mass memory, and smart. We describe another approach: merging the processor and coprocessor on a small chip dedicated to public-key cryptography. We added parts needed to obtain a low-cost smart card compatible with the ISO 7816-3 standard. By developing the processor for specific applications, we drastically reduced the complexity without affecting the chip's usefulness. To prove the feasibility of such a chip, we built one for use in a payment application with prepaid tokens.